Book: The Anglo-Indians – Dileep Prakash

Photographer Dileep Prakash has travelled 1000s of miles for three years to make portraits of India’s ‘Anglo-Indians’. This term was first used in the 17th century to define mixed marriages between Indians and British or Europeans. Composed in a relaxed manner, Dileep Prakash’s images reveal a diversity of characters, from teachers to tea planters, from funeral directors to students and different generations, from children to grandparents. Lifestyle is a key element to the cultural richness of this visual documentary.

How the subjects pose themselves within their living or work environments display a sense of dignity and honesty about their identity. The settings disclose historical and religious ties, they expose the simplest means of the home environment to the most elaborate. Some home interiors are like intimate small museums of times past with historical family photographs, Christian motifs and colourful Indian textiles. The pink chiffon dress of an elderly lady tells of a traditional courting dance past in contrast to the younger tight t-shirt generation of today’s club-scenes. In its entirety, this series takes the viewer on a personal journey throughout India, based on autobiographical roots.

Hardcover: 100 pages

Publisher: PHOTOINK;

First edition (2007)

ISBN-10: 8190391127

ISBN-13: 978-819039112

About The Photographer

Dileep Prakash (b. 1965) majored in history and has been photographing since the 1980s. A considerable part of his practice navigates memory, history and the passage of time – specifically India’s colonial past. Dileep’s fascination for steam locomotives began when he travelled between his boarding school and home and he photographed some of India’s last steam trains (1999-2003). For his project, The Anglo-Indians (2004-2006), he made portraits of a community in twilight. From 2007 to 2010, Dileep photographed boarding schools built by the British in colonial India. He began this project, titled What Was Home, at his alma mater Mayo College, Ajmer circa 1875. His recent work Sleeping in the Forest (2007-17) looks at moonlit dak bungalows and forests in the Himalayas.

Dileep is a visiting faculty and jury for the Master’s photography programme at the National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar and at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication, New Delhi.

Dileep Prakash is represented by Photoink and divides his time between his home in the Himalayas and New Delhi.